A Self-Made Man (17 page)

And remember the day they had made love in the car, and—

No. Not that one. She closed the door of her mind and pressed her whole weight against it. Not yet.

Suddenly she realized that Adam was talking to her. She looked up hastily, well aware that this time her face really did look different.

“What? I'm sorry. I was in another world.”

He was standing by the bed, smiling pleasantly. “I was just leaving. I hoped you'd walk me out to the car.”

She looked at Tilly, who clamped her mouth down
over a disgustingly gleeful smile. The net effect was classic cat-with-canary. Lacy wouldn't have been surprised to see yellow feathers sticking out between her lips.

“Of course,” she said, ignoring Tilly. Ignoring, too, the absurd flutter in her chest, as if she'd suddenly hatched butterflies in her heart. She moved Tilly's buzzer closer on her bedside table. “You can ring for the nurse if you need anything,” she said. “But of course I'll be right back.”

“Of course,” Tilly said smugly, though how she could talk around all those feathers was a mystery to Lacy.

Adam didn't speak until they were out of the house, walking toward his car. Lacy didn't know how to break the silence, so she simply followed him mutely, waiting. But she found herself oddly contented just to be near him.

Oh, God. What was happening to her? She wasn't letting him get under her skin again, was she?

Finally, when they had reached the edge of the drive, he turned around. “I've heard from Mr. Frennick,” he said. “There's news.”

“Mr. Frennick?” She shook her head, not understanding the significance. “
My
Mr. Frennick?”

“
Our
Mr. Frennick now,” he said. “After he brought the news about Tilly's daughter, I hired him to do a little more investigating. And he's found something. If you're not busy tomorrow, I'd like to take you to Boston.”

Her mind was moving slowly, she realized. She couldn't quite figure out what he was getting at.
“What could he have found? What's in Boston? Tilly's daughter is dead. He wasn't mistaken about that, was he?”

Adam shook his head. “No, he wasn't mistaken. Tilly's daughter is dead.” He took her hand and held it between his own. “But her granddaughter is very much alive.”

 

A
CCORDING TO
M
R
. F
RENNICK
, Tilly's granddaughter was thirty-one years old, newly divorced from a criminal lawyer who had been caught with his habeas all over the corpus of one of the prettiest paralegals in Boston.

But the divorce hadn't left Claire Scott Tyndale exactly destitute or downtrodden. She was a reporter for one of the Boston television stations, and she lived in an upscale redbrick town house not far from Faneuil Hall. She drove a silver BMW, was the outgoing president of the local League of Women Voters, and had recently adopted a springer spaniel named Winston.

She was also, according to Mr. Frennick, approximately seven-and-a-half-months pregnant.

But as thorough as the investigator's findings were, they didn't quite prepare Lacy for the shock of seeing the beautiful woman who opened the town house door. Nothing could have.

“Yes? Can I help you?” Claire Tyndale looked at them with large, brown, impatient eyes. Eyes that were so much like Tilly Barnhardt's that Lacy found herself momentarily speechless.

Claire frowned, glancing appraisingly over Lacy
and Adam. “You don't look as if you're selling anything,” she said. “Which is good, because I'm not buying.”

“We're not,” Adam assured her. He smiled, and instantly some of the impatience left the woman's face. No one, Lacy realized, could be completely unmoved by Adam's smile. “I'm Adam Kendall, and this is Lacy Morgan. We're friends of Tilly Barnhardt. She's connected to your mother's family. Does that name ring a bell to you?”

Claire shook her head thoughtfully. “No. I'm pretty sure I've never heard of her. How did you say she was connected to me?”

“Through your mother,” Lacy answered. “But it's actually quite complicated. And it's rather personal. Could we come in to talk about it? Or, if you'd be more comfortable somewhere else, we could go get a cup of coffee.”

Claire hesitated, her mobile face clearly running through every nuance of their faces, their accents, their clothes—even their car, which was parked behind them on the street. Trying, no doubt, to decide whether they were some sophisticated brand of con artist.

Lacy accepted the woman's perusal uncomplainingly. She would have done the same thing, in Claire's position. Adam had been in favor of calling first, explaining the basic facts over the phone before they arrived. But Lacy had wanted to see Claire with her own eyes. She'd wanted to do her own sizing up before they risked revealing Tilly's secret. If Claire had been a different kind of person…

But how could she have been any of those things? She was Tilly's granddaughter. Tilly's no-nonsense intelligence shone from her brown eyes, and Tilly's unpretentious friendliness played about her generous, mobile mouth.

“My goodness,” she said finally, opening the door wider to let them in. “This is all very secretive.” She nudged a curious puppy out of the way with one bare foot. “You'll have to forgive the house. I kind of let things go on the weekend.”

And it was a mess—the kind of mess you might expect from a hard-working journalist who wasn't expecting company. Newspapers were stacked high in one corner of the room she led them into, a nearly empty cup of coffee sat next to the crumbs of whole wheat toast, and along the back wall a large-screen television showed a pregnant woman down on all fours, saying perkily, “Lift, and hold. Lift and hold. Again! You can do it, ladies!”

Claire groaned and, grabbing the remote, zapped the woman into a sudden black oblivion. “Prenatal exercises. Humiliating stuff. But they say it helps with the pain, so I do the damn things every day.” She grinned at Lacy and rested her hand protectively on her stomach. “Spencer and I hate pain.”

Lacy smiled back, still getting used to looking at Tilly's eyes in this young, glamorous face. Even in maternity sweatshirt and leggings, with her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, Claire was stunning. Suddenly Lacy could see how very beautiful Tilly must have been when she was young.

Claire swept magazines from the sofa, and urged
them to sit. She settled in the leather armchair off to one side, and the little black-and-white spaniel immediately jumped up and tried to find a flat place on her tummy. “Down, sweetie,” she said, laughing. “This lap is already taken.”

A clear glass vase full of daisies sat on the table next to her, and Claire pulled a browning flower from the arrangement absently. “Well, are you ever going to tell me what this is all about?”

Daisies.
A lump forming in her throat, Lacy looked over at Adam, silently asking him to make the explanations. He was just that little bit more removed from the situation emotionally. He could tell it better, without sentimental side trips or irrelevant details. Like daisies.

He told it perfectly. Logically, carefully, honestly. Lacy felt herself holding her breath until he was finished.

Claire must have been holding her breath, too, because when Adam came to the end of his story she let out an audible whoosh of air. “Wow,” she said under her breath.

Then there was only silence. Claire twirled the dying daisy slowly between her fingers, staring out the town house window, apparently needing a minute to absorb it all.

Somehow Lacy forced herself to wait. As much as she loved Tilly, she was merely her friend. Claire was blood of her blood.

Claire had to be the one to speak first.

“You know. It's too bad she didn't do this sooner.” Claire finally looked at them again, but the
lighthearted warmth had gone out of her face. Her resemblance to Tilly was much less noticeable now. Tilly never looked this stern, no matter how hard she tried.

Lacy leaned forward. “She wanted to. So many times she thought about it—”

“
Thought about it?
My mother spent an entire year looking for her birth mother.” Claire's voice had taken on an edge. “Did you know that? She even posted notices on the Web. Joined all kinds of search groups. No one ever answered.”

“Tilly is eighty-six,” Lacy said defensively. “She doesn't even own a computer, and—”

Claire stood, dropping the daisy into a small wicker trash can near her desk. “I wonder if your friend Tilly had any idea how much pain there is for an adopted child. Does she have any idea how difficult it is to go through life believing you weren't wanted?”

“Of course she does—”

“I don't think so,” Claire said. “Otherwise, how could she have done it?” She touched her stomach. “Given up her own baby—”

“It was a different time,” Lacy said. “It was sixty years ago. You have to understand—”

“I don't
have
to understand anything,” Claire corrected flatly. “But I do. I understand that some people simply don't take their responsibilities to other people very seriously.” She still held her stomach, almost unconsciously molding her palm to the perfect mound there. “I just threw out a husband who was one of those careless, self-centered people. Frankly, I'm not
inclined to bring anyone else like that into my life right now.”

Lacy wanted to protest. Careless and self-centered? That was not Tilly. She wanted to make this woman see the truth—wanted her to know Tilly as she did. And to love her as she did. But what were the magic words that could break down this wall of resentment?

“We understand how you feel, Ms. Tyndale,” Adam said, rising politely. “And we certainly don't want to push you into anything you're not comfortable with. We just wanted you to know that your grandmother is out there, and that she has been looking for you.” He held out one of his business cards. “What you do with the information is entirely up to you.”

Lacy looked at him, knowing that he was right, that a calm withdrawal now was their only option. Claire's allegiance was with her mother, who had suffered from her sense of abandonment. She wouldn't be moved by tales of Tilly's heartache, which in Claire's eyes were probably her just deserts.

Still, Lacy found that she couldn't help wanting to plead with the young woman, to remind her of Tilly's age, to warn of her worsening illness, to tell her of her spunk, her love and her loyalty.

She wanted to make her understand how thrilled Tilly would be to know that a new baby was on the way. How unfair it was to deny the old woman the knowledge that her line would go on….

Lacy was surprised at the heat of her emotions. This wasn't like her. When had the need to maintain
a detached restraint become so burdensome? It had once come so easily.

“Lacy?” Adam was near the door, waiting. “We should go. We'll miss the ferry.”

But she couldn't leave without trying one more time. Even knowing she shouldn't, Lacy walked straight up to Claire Tyndale and touched the woman's cold, unyielding hands.

“I can't tell you what the right answer is for you,” she said. “I know that forgiving people who have hurt you can be very difficult, almost impossible. But Tilly is elderly, and she isn't well. She won't be around forever. If you hold this grudge too long, you may not have another chance. And then I'm afraid you might discover that forgiving
yourself
is the most difficult thing of all.”

 

T
HE FERRY RIDE BACK TO
Pringle Island was sunny and calm. By this late on a Sunday afternoon, most of the tourists were heading in the other direction, leaving the quaint, quiet island to begin another workweek in the big city. So Adam and Lacy had the boat almost to themselves.

They stood together at the railing, watching the steel-gray waters of the Atlantic part before the heavy prow of the ferry. At the moment, Pringle Island was just a dark line on the horizon, but Lacy knew they would make land before long, and her time alone with Adam would be over.

After talking to Claire, they had gone to lunch at a sidewalk café. The meal had passed quickly. Lacy had almost forgotten what an entertaining conversa
tionalist Adam could be. They had talked about cars and politics and theater and Pakistan. And, of course, Claire.

Amazingly, there had been no awkward moments, no tension of any kind. It was as if they had no ugly past between them. Lacy had been very sorry when Adam looked at his watch, and said that it was time to catch the ferry.

“It was a lovely day, wasn't it?” She wrapped her hands around the railing and leaned her head back to let the salt-laden wind sing through her hair. “I enjoyed myself.” She tilted her head to look at him. “And I've decided that I feel optimistic about Claire, in spite of everything.”

“You do?” He smiled. “You seemed worried when we left.”

“Yes, but I've been thinking. They belong together, don't you think? I know she's angry right now, but their shared genetic heritage is so strong. Look at her! The brown eyes, that strong, stubborn jaw. And what about the dog? You know Tilly loves animals. And the daisies. The daisies were—” She paused. She didn't want to sound absurdly superstitious, but… “They were a good sign, I thought.”

He raised his brows. “So you think DNA will win the day?”

“I think
love
will win the day.” Turning away, she studied the churning water beneath them. “Sometimes it does, you know.”

She looked up at him, then. The salty breeze was feathering his hair forward onto his face, and he looked so much like the old Adam—
her
Adam—that
she could hardly keep from reaching out and touching him.

“Yes,” he agreed carefully. “Sometimes it does.”

His eyes were dark, and steady as they watched her. He eased a strand of hair away from her cheek, and then, slowly enough to give her plenty of warning, plenty of time to stop him, he leaned forward and kissed her.